Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun One of the distinct individuals of a colonial invertebrate animal, such as a bryozoan, that arise asexually by budding.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Like an animal; of the nature of animals; having an animal character, form, aspect, or mode of existence, as an organism endowed with life and motion. See II.
- noun In biology, something like an animal; that which is of the nature of an animal, yet is not an animal in an ordinary sense, and is not the whole of an animal in a strict sense; one of the “persons” or recognizably distinct entities which compose a zoön; that product of any organism, whether of animal, vegetable, or equivocal character, which is capable of spontaneous movements, and hence may have an existence more or less apart from or independent of the parent organism.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Biol.) Pertaining to, or resembling, an animal.
- noun (Biol.) An organic body or cell having locomotion, as a spermatic cell or spermatozooid.
- noun An animal in one of its inferior stages of development, as one of the intermediate forms in alternate generation.
- noun One of the individual animals in a composite group, as of Anthozoa, Hydroidea, and Bryozoa; -- sometimes restricted to those individuals in which the mouth and digestive organs are not developed.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun biology An organic body or
cell havinglocomotion , as a spermatic cell orspermatozoid . - noun zoology An animal in one of its inferior or
early stages ofdevelopment , as one of the intermediate forms in alternate generation. - noun zoology One of the individual animals in a composite group, as of
Anthozoa , Hydroidea, andBryozoa ; — sometimes restricted to those individuals in which the mouth and digestive organs are not developed.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun one of the distinct individuals forming a colonial animal such as a bryozoan or hydrozoan
Etymologies
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Examples
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I'm not a biologist, but I do read that a zooid is a single cell that can move independently within a larger organism.
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I'm not a biologist, but I do read that a zooid is a single cell that can move independently within a larger organism.
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I'm not a biologist, but I do read that a zooid is a single cell that can move independently within a larger organism.
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It is not easy to imagine two objects more widely different in appearance than a bristle or vibraculum, and an avicularium like the head of a bird; yet they are almost certainly homologous and have been developed from the same common source, namely a zooid with its cell.
VII. Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection 1909
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It is interesting to see two such widely different organs developed from a common origin; and as the moveable lip of the cell serves as a protection to the zooid, there is no difficulty in believing that all the gradations, by which the lip became converted first into the lower mandible of an avicularium and then into an elongated bristle, likewise served as a protection in different ways and under different circumstances.
VII. Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection 1909
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The vibracula may have been directly developed from the lips of the cells, without having passed through the avicularian stage; but it seems more probable that they have passed through this stage, as during the early stages of the transformation, the other parts of the cell with the included zooid could hardly have disappeared at once.
VII. Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection 1909
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Mr. Busk, however, does not know of any gradations now existing between a zooid and an avicularium.
VII. Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection 1909
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Such zooids are specialised to such an extent that they lack the structures associated with other functions and are therefore dependent for survival on the others to do what the particular zooid cannot do by itself.
Pounding The Rock 2009
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1 Each such zooid in these pelagic colonial hydroids or hydrozoans has a high degree of specialization and, although structurally similar to other solitary animals, are all attached to each other and physiologically integrated rather than living independently.
Pounding The Rock 2009
mollusque commented on the word zooid
Zooego
April 4, 2009
bilby commented on the word zooid
"...whether of animal, vegetable, or equivocal character..."
November 1, 2011
ruzuzu commented on the word zooid
See citation on pyrosome.
June 23, 2017